


Somewhere I belong

by dani_the_girl



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-16
Updated: 2012-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-05 12:03:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dani_the_girl/pseuds/dani_the_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's part of a team now but that doesn't mean he likes it. Bruce takes the radical step of  talking to him about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere I belong

**Author's Note:**

> So this is mostly just trying to get a feel for the character voices, but also I wanted to think about how Tony's mission is changed by joining the Avengers finally.

As Bruce gets to the bottom of the stairs, he can see Tony through the glass walls of the workshop, fiddling away with something on the boots of his armour, absorbed. He knocks tentatively on the door; Tony gave him a code when he was giving him the tour, expansive and showing off just a little (OK, a lot), but he hasn't used it and he doesn't want to intrude.

Tony doesn't look up from what he's doing, screwdriver deep in the machinery but he gestures "come in" with his free hand, says something and the door pops open. "You forget your code?" Tony asks absently. "Jarvis can always open up for you if you ask nice." It's still slightly mystifying to Bruce that Tony seems to have no reservations about letting Bruce into his home, his life, but he's decided not to question it for the moment. He sets down the plate he's bought down and crosses over to the bench where Tony's working.

"What're you working on?" he asks curiously. He can see the schematics on the computer but engineering was never really his forte - Tony's a lot more hands on than he's ever been or wanted to be.

Tony sighs. "Well, it was going to be some stealth stuff, an adaptation of the mirroring cameras I installed on the carrier, but I can't get it to work well enough at close range when I'm moving fast so now it's just kind of fiddling around." He sits back in his chair, looking frustrated.

"Really," Bruce asks, surprised. "I didn't think stealth was your style."

That gets him a snort of laughter. "Usually, no," Tony agrees with the ghost of a grin, "but desperate times call for desperate measures."

"These are desperate times?" queries Bruce. "I thought everything was pretty quiet. Makes a nice change after last week."

Tony swivels away from him and catches sight of the plate of nachos Bruce'd bought down with him. "Oh, hey, are those for me? Of course they are, otherwise you'd have just eaten them upstairs. Awesome."

"You hadn't been up for anything to eat in 24 hours," Bruce points out. "Desperate times, Tony?"

"Hey, there's coffee down here, I'm fine," Tony says dismissively. "Thanks, though." He grabs the plate of nachos and lounges back in his chair.

Bruce wanders around the workshop, looking for some kind of clue to what's going on here. There's a couple of screens running international news in the background, a couple of satellite photos of desert bases, a map of Syria, couple of mugshots of what Bruce assumes are members of the government there. Tony is noisily inhaling nachos behind him. He doesn't say anything else, but he doesn't throw Bruce out either. Bruce leans in, closer to the satellite pictures. "Hey, Jarvis," he says, "can you zoom this one in a bit for me."

"No he can't," Tony says harshly. "Jarvis is on my side," just as Jarvis says "Certainly, Dr Banner" and zooms the photo so that Bruce can see the Stark Industries logo on the crates piled up. "Traitor," Tony says.

"Who are you hoping to hide from," Bruce asks.

Tony shrugs. "Well, people tend to shoot at you if you dive in and start blowing up their arms dumps so I thought it might make life easier."

"Yes, because you're all about making your life easier," Bruce agrees. He swipes the plate of nachos away from Tony.

"Hey!" Tony says, aggrieved, and makes a grab for them, but Bruce holds them out of reach. "Fine," Tony says and sits back down, swivelling the chair away from Bruce to look towards the armour schematics again. "Fury, if you must know."

Bruce puts the plate down. "Why?" he asks, even though he can guess, pretty much.

"Because I sat down with these guys and we had an enormous meal and there were a couple of really hot girls and then we signed some fucking contracts, OK," Tony yells, losing his temper. "And now they're shooting people in the streets with _my guns_ for nothing. For wanting a fucking say in their own country. How is that OK? And Fury won't let me go and just explode the damn stockpiles because of some bullshit about international relations and the reputation of his goddamn team." He sighs, and some of the anger seems to drain away. "Sorry. It's not your fault." He opens a drawer and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler, pouring himself a shot. "It's just this was supposed to be the point of the whole thing with the suit and everything. And now I'm on Fury's leash." He tosses back the shot and pours himself another.

"Got another glass in there?" Bruce enquires. Tony fishes one out without saying anything and pours Bruce his own shot which Bruce sips rather more slowly. It's good stuff, Isla malt, smokey and rich, worth savouring. He's not had anything this good in a while.

"Look," he says, not really expecting Tony to listen exactly, just to say it, "you didn't know, back then."

Tony snorts. "Bullshit," he says, fiercely, emptying his glass again. "I didn't just become a genius last week. I didn't want to know. I actively didn't think about it. I jet-setted around and got enormously drunk and ignored it. Even idiot hippies figured out why these people were buying weapons, you don't think I could have in about 5 seconds flat if I'd wanted to?"

"So why didn't you?" Bruce asks. He drains his glass and pushes it out to Tony for a refill.

"Hey," Tony says, suddenly seeming to focus on him, "is this a good idea? Are you an angry drunk?"

That actually makes him chuckle. "No, Tony, if anything, I'm a quiet drunk. Pour me enough, I might even shut up. You're fine. Why didn't you want to know?" He doesn't feel anywhere near the rage that would bring the other guy to the surface, just a huge sadness for this guy who's opened his home to him, who has no qualms about forgiving Bruce for all the damage and craziness he's caused but can't forgive himself.

"Who are you, my psych?" Tony asks tiredly.

"Repressing this stuff is not good for you in the long run." Bruce smiles crookedly. "Repression leads to hate, hate leads to anger, and anger... "

"Leads to the dark side," Tony finishes with a grin. "Yeah, well, I guess if I were you that would be a problem. I like to turn all my repressed rage into balls of highly pressurized guilt that power me through the fucking terror when we do all this insane stuff like fight weird space whales."

"And all that time, I thought that thing was powered by science," Bruce laughs, gesturing towards the arc reactor.

"Yeah," Tony says thoughtfully. He sips his drink slowly. "I didn't want to know because Dad and Obi had been doing this with the company for years before I got involved. I didn't know how to stand up and say my Dad was an arms dealer and I'm, what, better than him? I knew for sure that wasn't true, so I shut the fuck up and got on with it."

It's amazing how many of Tony's problems seem to come back to Howard Stark in the end. Bruce is sure it's at the root of why he doesn't get on with Rogers, who seems basically a nice guy - hell, it's practically his superpower. Anything related to his father seems to make Tony's hackles rise though, which can't make life easy since he spends all his time working for organisations his father founded. It makes sense of why Tony retreats to the workshop though; at least that space is all him.

"So are you going to ask Fury to let you off the team?" Bruce asks.

Tony stares at the schematics for a long time, quiet, and Bruce realises that he's really thinking about it, maybe has been ever since they finished up with the Chitauri. He's not sure what to do with that. He spends a lot of time wondering if he should be here, but not so much because he thinks the Avenger Initiative isn't a good thing as because he's worried that he'll accidentally lay waste to it. He wonders if he should be trying to persuade Tony to stay, but that seems pointless. In the end, Tony's got to want it himself, want it more than he wants revenge or absolution for his past, want it because it's real, not just because Fury turned him down the first time. Bruce sips his scotch and tries not to wonder what the hell he's going to say to Fury if Tony says yes.

Finally, Tony knocks back the rest of his drink and starts putting away the boot he'd been working on. Bruce almost wonders if Tony's forgotten about him, but then he says "No, this needs doing too. And if it wasn't Fury it'd be some tight-ass senator or something or they'd just blame the whole fucking country and I'd get us into a stupid desert war and the DoD'd want to confiscate the armour. At least if I'm theoretically on the leash, they go bitch at Fury instead of me. It's just hard to adjust."

"Hey, and now you know some super-spies," Bruce reminds him with a smile. "Just give those co-ordinates to Clint and Natasha, I'm sure they'd love to help out."

"What a thought," Tony laughs. "Maybe I'll earn my non-existent pay this week by not starting an international incident, even by proxy." He grabs the bottle and tumblers and nods over at the plate. "Grab that. If we leave it here, Dummy'll break it trying to wash it up. If we're going to drink and eat junk food, let's go do it where there are sofas."

Yes, why not, Bruce thinks as he follows Tony up the stairs. He wonders how often Tony gets like this, how long he would have stayed down here brooding if Bruce hadn't come downstairs looking and for the first time since he came back from India, he feels like he's in the right place. He takes one last look around the workshop, empty and quiet, before following Tony upstairs.


End file.
